Did you know that many discoveries of modern medical science
were anticipated by thousands of years by the ancient Hebrews?
Astounding as it may seem, health principles in the Bible were
thousands of years in advance of their times! How is it that the
ancient Hebrews knew the LAWS OF HEALTH and well being,
in many cases thousands of years before they were once again
"discovered" by modern medical science? How could this be?

by HOIM Staff

We live in an age of increasing concern about heart disease, cancer,
and a host of modern diseases which afflict our generation. Health is a
number one concern of millions despite the knowledge of modern medical
science. Why is this? Seemingly, in all these thousands of years that man
has been on this planet, he has not learned how to avoid sickness and stay
well. And even when man should know better, he often compromises with his
knowledge and eats things he knows he should not, doesn't get enough rest,
recreation, fresh air, or exercise!

Vibrant good health requires a price. It is not free. It demands self-control
and diligent effort.

The truth is, ancient health keys revealed in the Bible show the way
to avoid many illnesses and disease. Biblical health laws show how to avoid
epidemics, contagious diseases and plagues, venereal diseases, mental illness,
and a host of the ills man falls prey to every year -- including such diseases
as heart disease, cancer, and the "diseases of civilization."

Other ancient nations, not understanding these Biblical health principles,
were not so fortunate. Although many ancient peoples believed that good
health was one of the greatest of gifts, and the Greeks prized vigorous
health highly, disease was rampant among them. Its treatment concerned
physicians from the earliest dynasties in Egypt, physicians in Greece,
and medical practitioners in India and China.

The ancient nations experienced many, if not all, of the same diseases
that now plague humanity. Examination of neolithic bones in Denmark and
Norway have shown that arthritic diseases were among the most crippling
afflictions then as now. Neanderthal man suffered from arthritis. Malignant
tumors of the bone have been found in Egyptian mummies, in human remains
of France, North America and Peru.

X-ray photographs of mummies, paintings and sculptures have revealed
that Pharaoh Siptah of the Nineteenth Egyptian dynasty and some of his
subjects suffered from poliomyelitis. Pharaoh Merneptah suffered from arteriosclerosis
of the aorta. Hardened arteries occurred in other Egyptians from the Eighteenth
to the Twenty-seventh Dynasty.

Diseases -- Ancient and Modern

Professor Rene Dubos in his book Mirage of Health, says:
"In fact, the list of diseases found in mummies reads almost like
the catalog of a pathological museum and includes siticosis, pneumonia,
pleurisy, kidney stones, sinusitis, gallstones, cirrhosis of the liver,
mastoiditis, appendicitis, meningitis, smallpox, leprosy, malaria, tuberculosis,
congenital atrophy of the liver."

Why did the ancients suffer from the same disease that plague us, today?
The answer is relatively simple. They made the same mistakes! They violated
the same health laws.

For instance, it is well known that obese people have a shorter life
expectancy than other people. In laboratory experiments, rats fed an unlimited
diet were found to die sooner than animals prevented from gaining weight
by a restricted diet. Overweight is the most common nutritional disease
in the Western world. Was this also true in ancient times?

Writes Rene Dubos: "This was apparently true also in Imperial Rome,
as during all periods of great material prosperity. 'In the old days,'
wrote Lucretius in the fifth book of De Rerum Natura, 'lack of food gave
languishing limbs to Lethe; contrariwise today surfeit of things stifles
us.' Thus, history repeats itself. Like the prosperous Romans of two thousand
years ago, countless men of the Western world today are digging their own
graves through overeating" (Mirage of Health, pp. 155-156).

Was diet also an important health factor in ancient Egypt? Judging from
the dentition in mummies, dental caries were rare in Egypt during the predynastic
period and became more frequent with the development of civilization, especially
among the wealthy classes. Studies reveal that "...every form of
dental disease was more prevalent among the wealthy than among the poor
people who had to be satisfied with a coarse, uncooked diet" (ibid.,
p. 169).

Studies on the children of contemporary African tribes have yielded
similar conclusions. In a comparative investigation the caries rate was
found to be twenty-eight percent among the Luo children, who are town dwellers-and
eat manufactured foods, whereas it was only eleven percent among the Banyaruanda
children, whose parents are poor and unable to buy European foods other
than tea and sugar. The aborigines of Australia, who live on tough and
rubbery kangaroo meat have few caries and remarkably healthy peridontal
tissues, capable of transmitting a biting stress far greater than those
of more civilized races.

Thus diet played a very important role in the diseases of ancient times,
just as it does today. And seemingly, for all his 6,000 years experience,
man has progressed very little -- if at all -- in prevention of disease.
We face many of the identical diseases today that crippled and killed the
ancient Egyptians.

Why is this the case? The answer involves the fact that the modern world
has overlooked the sensible guidelines and health instruction contained
in the pages of Scripture.

Let's take a brief look at some of the major discoveries of medical
science regarding health.

Bubonic Plague -- Scourge of the Middle Ages

During the 14th century bubonic plague-called the "Black Death"--
struck Asia and spread to Russia, Persia, Turkey, North Africa and Europe.
Perhaps one third of the world population died in that tragic epidemic.

The plague did not relent. Panic, confusion, and death struck everywhere.
The dead were thrown into huge pits, mass graves, and rotting bodies lay
about everywhere. The final grim toll of the Black Death was an estimated
60 million lives.

Balavignus was a distinguished Jewish physician who lived during the
first part of the 14th century in Europe. He lived at a time when London
and Paris were reeking with garbage and filth -- when refuse was simply
thrown in the gutter and left to stink. Balavignus was a student of the
Old Testament and was familiar with the medical information set forth in
it.

When the Black Death broke out in 1346 and swept through Europe, like
a hurricane, killing millions, Balavignus saw that the miserable sanitation
throughout Europe was a major factor in the quick spread of the disease.
He instituted a cleanup movement among the Jews of Strassburg. He had all
refuse burned. The rats consequently left the Jewish ghettos and moved
into the Gentile sectors of the city. As a result, the Jews' mortality
rate from the plague was only five percent of what it was among their non-Jewish
neighbors!

This striking fact did not go unnoticed by their superstitious Gentile
neighbors. The general population soon saw the difference, and were amazed.
But instead of emulating the Jewish hygienic measures, the surrounding
people began to suspect the Jews of causing the plague by poisoning their
wells! As a result, a general massacre was launched. Balavignus himself,
persecuted and tortured, was finally compelled to "confess" that
he and others were "responsible" for the frightful disease!

How was the Black Death finally conquered? Declared David Riesman, Professor
of the History of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania: "Isolation
of the sick and quarantine came into use. These practices not only eliminated
the plague as a pandemic menace for the first time in history but also
led to general laws against infectious diseases, thereby laying the foundations
upon which modern hygiene rests" (Medicine in the Middle Ages,
p. 260).

Where did these principles originate? From the Bible!

The Old Testament contains many hygienic injunctions which relate to
health. If the world would have obeyed them, its disease toll would have
been drastically cut. Until the close of the 17th century, hygienic conditions
in cities were generally deplorable. Excrement was often dumped into the
streets. Flies, breeding in the filth, and rodents spread and carried disease
to millions. During the Industrial Revolution working-class families sometimes
lived in squalid, dark, airless tenements, perhaps 30 families sharing
one toilet which probably was connected to a cesspool overflowing into
the street. Some households simply emptied chamber pots out the window.
As a result, streets sometimes looked more like garbage pits than avenues!

In 1842 Edwin Chadwick, an English lawyer, showed that the working-class
suffered a higher incidence of disease than upper classes because of miserable
living conditions. He reported on the unsatisfactory sanitary conditions
and thus fostered a great sanitary movement throughout the Western world.

Self-seeking landlords and slum owners protested and opposed any clean-up
measures, but gradually progress was made. By clearing away the filth,
the sanitariums removed the breeding grounds of microbes which caused many
diseases. As a result, in the second half of the 19th century, epidemics
of typhus, typhoid, dysentery and cholera dramatically decreased.

The same lesson had to be learned the hard way in hospitals. During
the first part of the 19th century, hospitals seldom had running water.
Surgeons wiped their tools on their trousers. There was little regard for
sanitation and cleanliness. Infections were rampant, and as many as one
third of all pregnant women in hospitals died of puerperal fever, a form
of blood poisoning.

However, unknown to scientists and men of medicine, incredibly, the principle
of burying excrement and filth -- the basic underlying principle of MODERN SANITATION
-- was a basic LAW given in the Scriptures, fourteen centuries before the Messiah.
YEHOVAH God told Moses and the children of Israel:

"Thou shalt have a place also without the camp, whither thou shalt go
forth abroad: and thou shalt have a paddle upon thy weapon; and it shall be,
when thou wilt ease thyself abroad, thou shalt dig therewith, and shalt turn
back and cover that which cometh from thee" (Deut. 23:12-13).

Says Castiglioni, "The regulations in Deuteronomy as to how soldiers
should prevent the danger of infection coming from their excrement by covering
it with earth constitute a most important document of sanitary legislation"
(A History of Medicine, p. 70). Castiglioni declared, "Study
of Biblical texts appears to have demonstrated that the ancient Semitic
peoples, in agreement with the most modern tenets of epidemiology, attributed
more importance to animal transmitters of disease, like the rat and the
fly, than to the contagious individual" (Ibid., p. 71).

An indication that the Hebrews knew that the rat was implicated in the spread
of plague is found in I Samuel 6:4-5, where an outbreak of plague was associated
with "rats that have ravaged the whole land" (Living Bible). But 3,000
years later, when the Bubonic Plague devastated Europe, this knowledge had generally
been lost. Some blamed noxious fumes in the air, some blamed the stars, some
blamed a conjunction of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, some blamed the Jews, and
many blamed YEHOVAH God.

Generally, the world did not wake up to the importance of hygiene and cleanliness
until about the end of the 18th century. Yet vital principles of sanitation
and cleanliness were expounded long ago by YEHOVAH God to Moses!

Ancient Biblical Sanitation Laws

The Biblical laws of cleanliness, washings, and purification were not
all merely "ceremonial" customs or rituals. They protected the
camp of Israel from the dangers of contagious diseases and deadly plagues!

States Dr. D. T. Atkinson, "in the Bible greater stress was placed
upon prevention of disease than was given to the treatment of bodily ailments,
and in this no race of people, before or since, has left us such a wealth
of laws relative to hygiene and sanitation as the Hebrews. These important
laws, coming down through the ages, are still used to a marked degree in
every country in the world sufficiently enlightened to observe them. One
has but to read the book of Leviticus carefully and thoughtfully to conclude
that the admonitions of Moses contained therein are, in fact, the groundwork
of most of today's sanitary laws. As one closes the book, he must, regardless
of his spiritual leanings, feel that the wisdom therein expressed regarding
the rules to protect health are superior to any which then existed in the
world and that to this day they have been little improved upon" (Magic,
Myth and Medicine, Atkinson, p. 20).

Another plague which prevailed in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
in Europe was leprosy. England, Sweden, Iceland and Norway showed alarming
gains in the numbers of leprosy cases in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
But when the authorities began to institute the quarantine, in the form
of segregation of leprosy cases, the plague was again brought under control.

In Norway rigid national quarantine was introduced in 1856 because of
the widespread severity of leprosy. "Ninety years later the health
authorities were able to report that Norway had only five per cent of the
number of lepers that were there before segregation. Similarly favorable
reports come to us from Finland and Sweden, where enforced segregation
of lepers had also been instituted," writes D. T. Atkinson (Magic,
Myth and Medicine, p. 64).

Where did these quarantine laws come from? This same author tells us,

"It is most singular that a description of leprosy, as found in the
thirteenth chapter of Leviticus, could have been written so long before our
time. it is to be noticed that such an accurate description of this dread
malady as it appears in the Biblical narrative is not to be found in the literature
of any nation for the next seventeen hundred years" (ibid.,
p. 25-26).

Speaking of the Biblical laws regarding leprosy, Atkinson states:

"The laws of health laid down in Leviticus are the basis of modern sanitary
science. Moses ordered that cases of leprosy should be segregated, that dwellings
from which infected Jews had gone should be inspected before again being occupied,
and that persons recovering from contagious disease were not to be allowed
to go abroad until examined. The modern quarantine harks back to these sanitary
regulations of the Old Testament. " (p. 58).

Consider another example. In Vienna in 1846 Ignaz Semmelweis noticed
that one patient in eight died of puerperal fever in one ward where they
were tended by physicians and medical students who had just performed autopsies
on victims who had died. He noticed that in a ward ministered by midwives,
however, the death rate was much lower. He ordered all attendants to wash
their hands before treating the patients and the following year the death
rate dropped to zero. Unfortunately, the medical "authorities"
were not impressed, refused to believe there was any direct connection,
and Semmelweis was summarily dismissed from his job!

But the really remarkable fact is that Semmelweis, even though he was far ahead
of the prevailing medical opinion of his time in the mid-1800's, was still 3,200
years behind in medical knowledge! Almost 1,500 years before the Messiah, YEHOVAH
God gave Moses detailed instructions on cleaning one's hands and body after
handling the dead! You can read these extensive hygienic laws in Numbers, the
19th chapter, verses 11-22.

Semmelweis made an important discovery, but merely washing the hands
once would not be accepted as proper sanitation in any reputable hospital,
today. However, the Biblical laws went further. They stated the person
who touched a corpse was to be considered "unclean seven days."
The third day he was to purify himself and be sprinkled with the water
of separation or purification. That is, the water was to be thrown on him
(Hebrew zaraq, "to throw" or "sprinkle"). Some authorities
say that running water was to be used (verse 17). This duty was to be repeated
on the seventh day, and the individual was then to wash his clothes and
bathe himself in water -- and then he would be considered "clean."

Running water insured that the water was uncontaminated. The repeated
washings insured that there were time intervals which allowed exposure
to the sun to kill any bacteria which had not been washed off. The washing
of clothing and change of clothes also insured protection from spreading
infection.

Were these hygienic laws merely "rituals"? The answer is a
profound and resounding "NO!" They were invaluable and wise safeguards
from various sources of contamination! Clearly, regardless of the source
of his wisdom, Moses was 3,000 years ahead of his time!

Speaking of His divine LAWS, which protect human health and vitality, YEHOVAH
God declared to Moses and the children of Israel:

"If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD thy God, and
wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments,
and keep all his statutes, I WILL PUT NONE OF THESE DISEASES UPON THEE, which
I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the LORD that HEALETH THEE"
[that is, His very name is Yahveh-Ropheka, which is Hebrew for "the Lord
your Healer" -- that is one of His very names!] (Exodus 15:26).

Unfortunately, in our modern world nations are beginning to lose sight
of the importance of sanitation and hygiene. Our modem cities are becoming
increasingly polluted, filthy and dirty. Our air is becoming unfit to breathe
because of pollutants; water is becoming fouled and contaminated with industrial
chemicals and urban wastes. Some comic once joked that man is standing
knee deep in garbage on earth while he hurls rockets at the moon!

Could the continuing decrease of sanitation, and the growing pollution
and filth around us, be contributing factors in the increase in modem degenerative
and contagious diseases?

Other Biblical Health Laws

At first one might think it strange that the Bible would have something
to say about cardiovascular disease or arteriosclerosis -- but it does!

Modern researchers have pinpointed several contributing causes of heart
disease including improper diet, overweight, smoking, lack of exercise
and nervous mess. What does the Bible have to say about heart disease?
Much more than you probably imagine!

First, the Bible clearly recommends a balanced life "moderation"
in all things (compare Phil. 4-5). It condemns gluttony and over-eating
(Prov. 23:20-21). The Bible also tells us we should exercise regularly,
moderately, throughout our lives. I Timothy 4:8, correctly translated,
shows that bodily exercise profits "for a little while." The
Bible also admonishes us to avoid nervous stress, anxieties, and worries
which can trigger heart attacks.

Perhaps the most interesting point of all, however, is the fact that
medical science has proved there is a correlation between heart disease
and diets high in animal fat. Fatal coronary heart disease has been caused
by diets containing high levels of fat. Animal fats are high in cholesterol.

But what does this have to do with the Bible? Simply this: Dr. Paul
Dudley White, the heart specialist who treated President Eisenhower while
he was in the White House, once quoted Leviticus 7:23:

"Ye shall eat no manner of fat, of ox, or of goat."

Dr. Paul Dudley White asserted, "It is conceivable that a few years
from now we medical men may repeat to the citizens of the United States
of America the advice that Moses was asked by God to present to the children
of Israel 3,000 years ago."

Was Moses way ahead of his time? YEHOVAH God told Israel to avoid eating animal
fats -- diets high in animal fat -- a major cause of clogged arteries and coronary
heart disease!

Here is further evidence that the Biblical health teachings "scooped"
modern medical science by 3,400 years!

Proper diet is also important in the prevention of disease. In Leviticus 11
we read of important dietary laws which YEHOVAH God gave His people. Among other
things, he forbade them to eat the flesh of swine, rabbits, or shellfish (Lev.
11:6, 7, 9-12). Were these laws merely ceremonial, ritualistic? Not at all!
Writes Dr. Louis Lasagna:

"Many of these make good medical sense . . . The prohibition of hare
and swine as sources of food certainly must have diminished the incidence
of disease, in view of the capacity of these animals to transmit tularemia
and trichinosis, respectively. The transmission of gastrointestinal infections
(including typhoid fever) via polluted shellfish or water also testifies to
the apparent wisdom of the Hebrews in warning against such sea food and impure
water" (The Doctors' Dilemmas, p. 85).

Cancer, one of the most fearsome and excruciating diseases afflicting
mankind today, would also be greatly reduced if all men and women obeyed
the health laws of the Bible!

Consider: Every year in the United States alone over 300,000 people
lose their lives from cancer. According to specialists, the overwhelming
majority of the 60-odd thousand deaths due to lung cancer would be eliminated
by the institution of one measure; Stop smoking cigarettes!

Although the Bible doesn't mention smoking cigarettes by name, many Biblical
principles show that slavery to a "weed" is virtual idolatry and is
contrary to YEHOVAH's will. Smoking cigarettes is a major source of "pollution,"
as scientific evidence shows. YEHOVAH God says through the apostle Paul:

"What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which
is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought
with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which
are God's" (I Cor. 6:19-20).

If people would obey just this one Biblical principle, and avoid smoking
cigarettes like the plague, there would be 60,000 less deaths each year
due to lung cancer alone!

The VALUE of Circumcision

Interestingly, cancer of the cervix -- which comprises about 25 percent
of the cancer of women in general -- is very rare among Jewish women. Wrote
Dr. Louis Lasagna,

"Since the beginning of the nineteenth century it has been known that,
married or unmarried, Gentile women have two to three times as high an incidence
of genital cancer (particularly cancer of the cervix) as do Jewish women.
Wherever
physicians have compiled statistics -- in New York and Vienna, Budapest and London,
Leeds and Amsterdam -- this differential susceptibility to genital cancer has
emerged" (ibid., p. 243).

This finding astounded the medical experts. Why are Jewish women comparatively
free from this dreaded scourge?

Medical researchers have concluded that it is because the practice of circumcision,
which YEHOVAH God gave to Abraham and his descendants, enables men to keep the
glans penis and foreskin clean and free from the bacteria which could otherwise
become lodged beneath the foreskin.

In regard to circumcision, Lasagna writes: "...the practice
almost guarantees against the development of cancer of the penis, and may
be related to the lower incidence of cancer of the cervix in Jewish women"
(The Doctors' Dilemmas, p. 85).

Another important law in the Old Testament which may be related to lower
incidence of cancer of the cervix is the law against having sexual intercourse
during a woman's menstrual period (Lev. 20: 1 8).

AIDS and Venereal Diseases

The fastest spreading contagious disease in the Western world today
is venereal disease. In the United States alone, someone contracts venereal
disease every 12 seconds! There are probably over five million new cases
of venereal disease in the United States every year. Medical authorities
frankly admit that venereal diseases, and especially the scourge of AIDS,
are spread through promiscuous sexual contact. Homosexuals account for
nearly all the cases of AIDS in the United States, and one-fifth of the
reported cases of venereal disease! This no doubt is due to their extremely
promiscuous life style and sexual practices. As long as there is promiscuity,
free sex, and homosexuality, there is bound to be venereal disease. What
is the solution to this rampant scourge of mankind?

But the solution to this terrible worldwide curse is as simple as it
is ancient: As the apostle Paul wrote:

"Shun immorality! Any other sin that a man commits is outside the body,
but the immoral man sins against his own body" (I Cor. 6:18, Moffatt
Translation).

What does the Bible say will happen to those who devote themselves to sexual
vice, who dishonour their own bodies? YEHOVAH God inspired Paul to write to
the church at Rome:

"...their women have exchanged the natural function of sex for what
is unnatural, and in the same way the males have abandoned the natural use
of women and flamed out in lust for one another, men perpetrating shameless
acts with their own sex and getting in their own persons the due recompense
of their perversity" (Rom. 1:26-27, Moffatt Translation).

The growing incidence of these horrible plagues speaks eloquently that
the only workable solution is prevention. Thousands of years ago the Biblical
standards of morality safeguarded against these plagues which blight the
lives of as yet unborn generations. There is no safe, reliable "cure"
for AIDS or VD or any similar disease -- except prevention. Why do millions
insist on rejecting this self-evident truth?

When YEHOVAH God created mankind, He said, "Therefore shall a man leave
his father and his mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be one
flesh" (Gen. 2:24). If this one basic, Scriptural principle were obeyed
today, the world would see the end of AIDS, and venereal diseases of all kinds.

The Bible, clearly, is a remarkable Book. Its various portions, written
from 2,000 to 5,000 years ago, speak plainly, clearly, and authoritatively
all across the field of health and disease prevention. The Bible not only
gave laws of sanitation and hygiene thousands of years before "medical
science" stumbled across the same laws, but it also gives basic principles
of prevention of disease which millions today still refuse to face, and
admit are true.

Mental Illness and Depression

Thus far I have only dealt with Biblical health laws as they concern
physical ailments, diseases and afflictions. But there are an estimated
20 million Americans who are mentally ill-suffering various forms of neuroses,
psychoses, and emotional-mental problems.

The National Association for Mental Health admits, "We know very
little about the causes of mental illness, and until we know much more,
we cannot identify any sure way to prevent mental illness."

Wrote Dr. Sarnoff A. Mednick in
Psychology Today, "We have been
working on the problem of schizophrenia, however, for more than 100 years,
and at this point it is fair -- in fact necessary -- to say that we know very
little definite about the origins of this disease. Zero" (Mednick,
"Birth Defects and Schizophrenia," Psychology Today,
April, 1971).

When medical authorities admit they don't know the causes of mental
illness, or how to prevent it, perhaps we should look to another source -- another
Authority -- for counsel and advice. What about the Bible? Does the Bible
say anything about mental and emotional illness? In view of the amazing
statements in the Bible pertaining to other modern afflictions, it would
be surprising if the Bible didn't say anything about mental illness.

YEHOVAH God warned 3,400 years ago that if men insisted upon breaking His laws
and commandments, and living their own ways, the result would be disastrous.
YEHOVAH said if we broke His laws we would be smitten with mental illnesses:

"The Eternal will strike your minds with madness, blindness, and dismay,
till you grope at noon like a blind man in the dark, and fall into disaster"
(Deut. 28:28-29, Moffatt).

The original Hebrew word for "madness" in this verse is shiggaown
and refers to mental insanity, craziness -- a raving maniac. Interesting, isn't
it, that 25 percent of our hospital beds today are occupied by victims of schizophrenia?

What is the solution to the plague of mental illness devastating millions of
lives today? If our modern nations would obey YEHOVAH God's laws, including
the health laws which He established, YEHOVAH would remove these curses -- which
we have brought upon ourselves because of our disobedient life styles -- far
from us (Deut. 28:58-62; Lev. 26:40-46).

Obedience to the laws of YEHOVAH God is the key to mental health. "Great
peace have they that love thy law," David wrote in the Psalms (Psa. 119:165). YEHOVAH's law is the way to a long life, happiness and peace (Prov. 3:1-2).

YEHOVAH's law summarized, is the law of love-outgoing concern for others (Matt.
22:36-40). Love is the fulfilling of YEHOVAH's law (I John 5:3, Rom. 13:10).
Perfect, mature love casts out fear, worry, anxiety, depression, and the negative
emotions which can wreck mental health (I John 4:18). This kind of love is outgoing
concern for the welfare of other people, as opposed to self-centered, selfish
concern for self. It is the attitude of giving to others, service to others,
helpfulness (see Acts 20:35).

This kind of love leads to real mental health and emotional well-being.
It conquers the negative emotions of jealousy, envy, fear, hatred, vanity,
worry, anxiety, inferiority, depression, discouragement and the like. Developing
this outgoing love is the road to mental health -- the key to mental health!

In other words, the way we think has a dramatic effect on our health
and vitality. Negative thinking can destroy and vitiate good health. Positive
thinking can reinforce and invigorate our health, and lead to radiant,
robust health! The human mind has a direct and powerful effect over "matter"
-- our body and its functions!

Solomon wrote in Proverbs concerning this principle:

"For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he" (Proverbs 23:7).

The effect of the mind and emotions on human health today is well known.
Books have been written about it. Pychosomatic illness is an emotionally-induced
illness, where emotions lead directly to physical diseases, by lowering
our resistance. Therefore, positive emotions can be a powerful key to preventing
disease, and helping to increase our resistance to them.

Paul wrote to the Philippians:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are
honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever
things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise, THINK ON THESE THINGS" (Philippians 4:8).

If a person has true love for others, he will radiate cheerfulness and
joy. Modern medical science has found that cheerfulness and joy are tremendous
antidotes for sickness and mental illness. Solomon declared in the book
of Proverbs,

"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine" (Prov. (17:22).

Modern clinical evidence supports this statement of Solomon!

Bible Health Secrets -- the KEY to Health

When will men cease to overlook the Source Book for good health? When will
educators and medical authorities accept the fact that the health principles
endorsed by science today were originally set forth -- in principle -- and in
striking details -- in the Bible thousands of years ago?

Today, medical science spends millions of dollars to conduct research
to find a "magic cure" for cancer. Movies glorify doctors, surgeons,
and medical researchers who are ostensibly looking for a "magic bullet"
to cure disease. But amidst all this glamour, something is missing. It
seems far more logical, doesn't it, that medical science should concentrate
its efforts on preventing disease, rather than merely "treating"
it after its occurrence?

And shouldn't the major function of doctors be to educate the public
as to the preventive measures they should take so they can avoid disease
And yet Selig Greenburg wrote in The Troubled Calling:

"There is little question that the promotion of health throughout life
can be a paramount factor in the prevention of the chronic ailments...Unfortunately, not only is the doctor's role as teacher often neglected in
today's medical practice, but preventive measures are not given nearly the
attention that they deserve" (The Troubled Calling, p.
360).

YEHOVAH's principles were designed to prevent illness, contagion, and disease
epidemics -- to maintain vibrant good health for a whole community. But the
world generally continues to ignore, slight, and scoff at those teachings. What
a paradox! And no wonder so many people are so sick and suffering from so many
diseases!

It is time we admitted that thousands of years ago when most other nations
-- steeped in superstition -- were propounding weird remedies and "
cures" for illness, there was a nation which was given a way of life
free from superstition, and which was taught principles of health and disease
prevention which are still valid today.

An ancient Egyptian medical book, the famous Papyrus Ebers,
tells us that in ancient Egypt medicine was bound up inextricably with
magic and mythology. Among the hundreds of disgusting remedies suggested
for various diseases are human excrement mixed with yeast of sweet beer,
male semen, ass's semen, excrement of the adu bird, testicles of a black
ass, cat's dung, tape worm, hoof of an ass, bullock's bile, mouse's tail,
and assorted wings, shells, toes, guts, fat, urine, etc. (see The
Papyrus Ebers, by Cyril P. Bryan, pp. 32-38). Sound preposterous?
The ancient Egyptians took these remedies seriously -- as if their lives
depended on them!

Truly Biblical health laws were far in advance of their times.
Can we learn from the Bible health secrets and laws to improve our own health?
The choice is yours!

Hope of Israel Ministries -- Preparing the
Way for the Return of YEHOVAH God and His Messiah!